A BBC investigation has found a convicted people smuggler, described by French prosecutors as 'the godfather' of the Dunkirk migrant camps, living in Leicestershire and claiming asylum. Twana Jamal, an Iraqi Kurd, received a five-year prison sentence in France in 2016 for running a smuggling operation which earned him up to £100,000 a week, charging migrants £4,500 per Channel crossing. Despite a court deportation order, Jamal entered the UK; he was found working illegally, driving without a licence, and using a false name. When confronted, he said: 'I don’t care’. The BBC also identified more than twenty other active smugglers now living in the UK, with fifteen cases confirmed by European law enforcement. Investigators point to a critical post-Brexit gap: the UK no longer has full data-sharing agreements with EU countries, making it significantly harder to identify asylum seekers with serious overseas convictions. The Home Office says checks are in place, but the Immigration Services Union says that access to shared European criminal databases would transform the UK’s ability to screen out serious offenders at the border.